How desolate the city sits [that] was full of people! She has become like a widow, [once] great among the nations! Like a woman of nobility in the provinces, she has become a forced laborer.

All her people groan, they are searching for bread. They give their treasures for food, to bring back life. See, O Yahweh, and look, [how] I am despised.

From heaven he sent fire, into my bones he let it descend. He spread out a net for my feet; he turned me back, he gave me devastation, fainting all day.

The Lord has rejected all my mighty ones in my midst. He called an assembly against me, to crush my young men; [like in] a wine press, the Lord has trodden [on] the virgin daughter of Judah.

How, {in his anger}, the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion in a cloud! He has thrown down from heavens [to] earth the splendor of Israel, and he has not remembered his footstool in the day of {his anger}.

The Lord has devoured; he has not shown mercy to all the dwellings of Jacob; he has broken down in his wrath the fortifications of the daughter of Judah; he has leveled to the ground, he has dishonored the kingdom and its commanders.

He has cut down {in fierce anger} all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn his right hand from the faces of [the] enemy, and he has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, it has consumed all around.

He has bent his bow like an enemy; he has set his right hand like a foe, and he has slain all [the] treasures of [the] eye; in the tent of the daughter of Zion, he has poured out his anger like fire.

The Lord has become like an enemy; he has destroyed Israel; he has destroyed all its citadel fortresses; he has ruined all its fortifications and multiplied lamentation and mourning in the daughter of Judah.

He has broken down {his dwelling} place like the garden; he has ruined his appointed feasts; Yahweh has made [them] forget in Zion {festival} and Sabbath, and he has despised in his anger king and priest.

The Lord has rejected his altar; he has rejected his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hands of the enemy the walls of its citadel fortresses. They have cried out in the house of Yahweh like a day of an appointed feast.

Yahweh has planned to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He measured [with] a line; he has not restrained his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to mourn; together they have languished away.

Her gates have sunk into the earth; he has ruined and broken her bars, her kings and its princes [are] among the nations; there is no more law. Also, her prophets have not found a revelation from Yahweh.

Yahweh has done what he has planned; he has fulfilled his promise that he ordained from the days of old; he has demolished and not shown mercy; he has made an enemy rejoice over you, he has exalted the {might} of your foes.

He has driven me along, he brought darkness and not light.

Surely he has turned his hand against me, all day long.

He has worn out my flesh and skin, he has broken my bones.

{He has besieged} and engulfed me with bitterness and hardship.

In darkness he has let me dwell like [the] dead of long ago.

He has built a wall around me, I cannot go out; he has made my bronze fetters heavy.

Though I cry out for help, he shuts out my prayers.

He has blocked my ways with dressed stones; he has made my paths crooked.

To me he [is] like a bear lying in wait, a lion in hiding.

He has forsaken my way and torn me to pieces; he has caused me desolation.

He has bent his bow and set me as the target for the arrow.

He shot {the arrows of his quiver} into my kidneys.

He has filled me with bitterness, he has drenched me [with] wormwood.

He has broken my teeth on grit, he has trampled me down in ash.

Let him sit alone and be silent when he has laid it on him.

For even though he causes grief he has compassion according to the greatness of his royal love.

He does not {afflict willingly}, or grieve {anyone}.

{to deprive one of justice} before the face of the Most High;

[Is] it not from the mouth of the Most High [that] disaster and good will come?

How [the] gold has grown dim, the pure gold has changed. The stones of holiness are scattered at the head of every street.

The precious sons of Zion weighed against fine gold, how they are thought of as earthen vessels of clay, the work of the potter's hands.

Yahweh has completed his anger, he has poured out {his fierce anger}; he has kindled a fire in Zion, it consumed her foundations.

The presence of Yahweh has scattered them, he will no longer watch over them; {they did not honor the priests}, they did not show mercy [to] elders.

The [punishment] of your iniquity is completed, O daughter of Zion, your exile will not continue; [but] he will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he will reveal your sins.